Building a questionnaire of values towards Science and Technology: a proposal for a new indicator of Public Perception of Science and Technology

• Grant number: 17/07156-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: August 01, 2017
• End date: October 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications - Journalism and Publishing
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Knobel
• Grantee: Braulino Nunes de Vasconcelos
• Supervisor: Jon D. Miller
• Host Institution: Núcleo de Desenvolvimento da Criatividade (NUDECRI). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Michigan, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/23494-4 - Building a questionnaire of values towards Science and Technology: a proposal for a new indicator of public perception of Science and Technology, BP.MS

Abstract

This research project aims to contributing to the Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PUST) indicators development, comprising that the society's perception of themes linked to science and technology innovation is fundamental to any country's development.Searching for alternatives to already saturated indicators, this project focuses on the social psychologist Shalom Schwartz's Values Theory, while the model can help with the comprehension of practices and attitudes adopted by subjects. Schwartz et al. (2012) conceptualizes values as leading principles of actions, evaluations, choices and human attitudes. From this model, there is the objective of building, applying and validating a questionnaire which shall assess how individual values (following Schwartz's theory) contribute to and/or motivate the adoption of some attitudes towards science and technology (S&T). The building of a questionnaire on values towards S&T will firstly lean on literature acknowledgement, looking forward to developing the questionnaire composing questions. Afterwards, a question analysis will be performed through judge appreciation, followed by an application of a pilot questionnaire to evaluate the clarity of the formulated questions. In order to analyze the relations between values towards S&T and the other PUST indicators researched in the study, Pearson's correlation and the regression analysis will be utilized. At last, the questionnaire of values towards S&T precision will be analyzed by Cronbach's alfa. By this, the project in question proposes the utilization of Schwartz's model as an indicator of PUST, suggesting that this relation can help the elaboration of a critical reflection about the subject's interest towards S&T. (AU)